The Luders Family

Rosemary, sweet baby girl, you are three!I remember when you were born, I couldn’t imagine you being a little girl. I wondered what you would look like and who you would be. This year, your personality has really started to shine through. You are a talking machine, so we are really starting to understand what you’re thinking, too. But more than anything, you are so loving. Here are some highlights from the year.

I can’t talk about the year without first mentioning your first full year as a big sister. I couldn’t be more proud of how sweet you are to your baby brother. When you talk to him, you use your “Baby Reid voice,” as we call it. I can’t quite describe it, but it’s like if a grandma was trying to teach something to a young child. Kind of talking down to him, but in a sweet way. You are always trying to help him (sometimes to his detriment) and to hold him or his hand. Every night, you give him a hug and the gentlest little kiss before bed. One thing I am especially proud of is how you help us watch out for Reid’s allergies. Even when you make pretend food, you’ll say sweet little things like “Here’s a cookie! Reid isn’t allergic – it has no milk.” How sweet is that?

You two, of course, have your differences. You don’t like to share your toys with him. If he even starts to crawl towards something you’re playing with (even if it’s his), you often erupt. Sharing has been a big lesson for you this year, but you’re making progress. You also have had to learn to share your mama. You’ll often ask dad to hold Reid so you can get some mama snuggles. I love how having a sibling has made you a little cuddlier, even if a side effect of that is that you want me to carry you everywhere. As a baby, you were little miss independent who never wanted to be restrained, but now I often find myself carrying a baby and a toddler in both arms!

Your vocabulary has exploded this year. We can have full conversations with you, and you tell us stories about things that are going on at school or with the family. You really listen and observe everything around you. When you started school last September, your teachers told me that you were very quiet. I was shocked! They said that you didn’t miss anything, but you were just quietly observing everything. After about a month of school, they told me that you had finally opened up. Now they give me little snippets of some of the sweet things you do and say. Recently, I was told that you love to go around saying “Ice cream! Ice cream!”, which I, of course, already knew because you did that at home too, ha! You love to pretend like you’re selling ice cream, so we got you a cute little ice cream cart to celebrate you quitting your paci back in February (we were SO so proud of you!). The last thing your teachers told me was that you really love circle time and know all the words to everything at circle time. I laughed because you had been making us all do circle time every night before bed. Baby Reid (as we all ALWAYS call him) is always the flag helper, mommy always leads singing “This is the Day” and daddy is always the book helper. We all love watching you learn and reenact what you observe.

Some of your favorite things this year have been:

• Trains & Thomas the Train….until you realized how loud trains are, and then they were pretty much dead to you
• Daniel Tiger
• Playgrounds
• Hot air balloons (hence, the birthday party theme)
• Taking care of your baby dolls, Baby Jasmine and Baby Rapunzel (who you named, but who is also 100% bald)
• Playing kitchen
• Halloween (specifically, candy) and Christmas
• Singing your ABCs, Twinkle Twinkle, Happy Birthday, You are my Sunshine, Jesus Loves Me, and Wheels on the Bus
• The movies Coco and Rapunzel
• Circle Time
• The pool (specifically, the baby pool)
• Fernbank and dinosaurs
• Play dough with cookie cutters, which you call “cookie daughters”
• Balconies, which you call “ballerina houses”

You don’t love getting in your car seat, especially to run errands, but you do love to travel. We flew to Phoenix in the fall, and you still ask to go back to the airport. We went to the lake over spring break and you had a blast playing in the sand and running around with your cousins.

You’ve simultaneously become more and less brave. You’ve had spurts where you’ve been scared of the dark, going so far as sleeping with the overhead light and lamp on. You’re scared of almost all bugs, even the tiniest gnats. You’re still scared of vacuums and tractors. Fortunately, though, you have gotten so brave about the doctor. It’s pretty clear that you’re still scared, but you actively try to be brave, and I’m really proud of you trying so hard to conquer your fears. You also recently went to the dentist with me, and you let them count your teeth at the end. Two year old Rosemary would have never let that happen. You’re becoming such a strong little girl.

Rosemary, I could go on for a long time talking about what a wonderful little girl you are. Over the past few weeks, you’ve been working really hard to speak very politely to us, and it’s made me realize how much you’re growing up. You’re becoming a fun little friend who likes to tag along in activities we can both enjoy. Just a couple days ago, we planted a garden together! I can’t wait to get to know you more and more. To see how smart and sweet and strong you become. We all love you so much. You’re the best daughter and sister we could have ever asked for. You are a blessing in our lives, and I’ll never stop thanking God for giving you to our family!

Hey, sweet girl! I’m running late on posting this again, so I am going to work on finding a way to streamline these posts. You are busy busy busy these days, so I am running out of time to write much. Let’s see how we can categorize some of your accomplishments so I can try to remember all my favorite things about this month:

Cute Quotes:

• “Yeah” and “No” and SO many different intonations
• “Oh no, it’s a rainy day”
• “Sunshine flower”
• “Long long long hair” (you think your hair is as long as Rapunzels haha!)

Favorite Things

• Reid! You still love playing with him and giving him kisses!
• Thomas the train
• Camp lantern that we let you keep in your bed
• Sleeping on the floor (whyyyy?)
• Pom pom jar that we started this month (trying to use positive reinforcement to keep you from hitting mommy and to incentivize you to listen, ha!)
• Cookies at the grocery store
• Tangled (the movie) and your “Rapunzel house”
• Books – current favorites are Pat the Bunny, Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site, Goodnight Moon, and Pacifiers are Not Forever
• Bubbles and playing outside

Least Favorite Things

• Car seat
• Stroller

Fun Activities

• Fernbank – you loved the dinosaurs, giant bubbles, and ocean exhibit
• Going to Gigi and Papa’s farm
• Visiting a Sunflower farm, although you ran into the field and nearly scared me to death!
• Picking a gallon of blackberries! You did a great job holding the bucket and picking only the ripe berries!
• Playing in the play center at the Y, which we joined this month
• Music school

You really are becoming your own person, and it’s so fun to watch! You definitely have a wild side, and I am trying to embrace it while keeping you safe. You are so friendly and are rarely shy. I am so proud of independent you are, even if I want to keep you my little baby forever. You’ve been asking to be a little baby this week (baby bottles, sleep sacks, etc.), and we are more than happy to comply. You’ll always be our baby, no matter how old you get! We love you so much, sweet girl!

Hey sweet girl! You turned two year and four months two days ago, but I haven’t had a moment to sit down and write your post because, well, you scared us again this week. You had your second seizure a few days ago, and we had to take another ambulance ride down to the emergency room. This time, you were in good spirits in the morning and even when you woke up from your nap, but you slowly got needier to me. We were actually going to head to the pool when you started to slump against the ottoman and I realized you had a fever. I started our normal Tylenol/Ibuprofen alternation, but a few hours later, your fever spiked to 104.5 and you started to seize. Fortunately, we had medicine this time, so I was able to stop the seizure at 11 minutes this time. Still so scary though! We spent a few hours at the emergency room before you were discharged. You had a fever for a couple days after that and you’ve been in good spirits for the last two or three days. The doctors couldn’t figure out what caused the fever until today when Reid came down with hand foot and mouth. We think you probably had sores in your mouth that weren’t visible to the doctor. I hate seeing you in such distress, but you were so brave baby girl. And now that Reid is sick, you are so sweet. When he cries, you rush over, give him a kiss, and say “It’s ‘kay, Reid! I here!”. It is the sweetest thing!

You really love your brother so much! You constantly talk about him, and any time you’re upset, all I have to do is mention him, and you start to perk up. The first thing you ask about in the morning is where the baby is. Anytime we go anywhere, you confirm that baby will be there too. You are always on official pacifier duty, finding it when he drops it, and putting it back in his mouth whether he wants it or not!

This month has been all about the pool. Along with many other things (cookies, cake, Coco, wagon), I’ve had to start spelling the word pool when talking about it. You don’t forget anything I say now, so we have to be confident that we are going before even mentioning it. You are so so smart! I don’t know how you remember so many thing at your age. I’m especially impressed by how quickly you figure out how to do things and when you make believe. Just yesterday you used your bunny’s hand to hold a rattle and pretended that he was shaking it along to the music.

I could have mentioned it for many months now but always forget – your hair is wild! I always say that it’s as wild as you are, ha! There are tons of soft, beautiful curls all over your head, many of which seem to stop right in your eyes. I always try to put bows in your hair to keep them out of your face, but you always manage to get them out. You are a girl who knows what she likes!

You are such a sweet little girl! You are always kind to all your friends and excited to play. We love you so much and can’t wait to see what fun the next month brings!

Ok, Rosemary. I told myself that I was only going to write these entries for your first year. Then one became two. I told myself that I’d have to write just as long for Reid as I did for you, so by signing myself up for year three for you, meant that I’d be writing for the next five years. So I didn’t write month 25 and I missed it. I have too many unposted photos and so many cute stories to tell. You’re growing so much and I don’t want to forget it! Plus, I like being able to reference what you were doing each month compared to what Reid is doing. So here goes. Sorry future self!

Your language is exploding. Here are some of my favorite things you say:

“Oh no! It’s a rainy day!”
“Listen (*points to ear*)Ca ca (bird)”
“Baby our bed”
“Poo poo baby”
“Donnie all gone”
“Carry you” (you don’t quite get what to call yourself yet)
“____ so silly” (everything is silly right now)
“Bye _____. Yuv you.”
“Share?” (While clasping your hands together, usually for something I’ve already told you you can’t have)
“Prayers??” (When we sit down for dinner)

I’m sure there are a hundred more that I could list but those are the ones that instantly come to mind. I love listening to you talk, and I’m always surprised by the word you understand and say.

We took you on your second plane ride this month and you did so much better this time. You had your own seat, so we didn’t have to restrain you, which you liked. I bribed you with candy to get you to ride in the stroller through all the airports, but it was totally worth it because you were a little doll the whole trip. When you were sick over the winter and Reid had just arrived, we fell into a lot of bad habits like not sitting in a high chair and required all foods to be eaten out of the original container, but I spent the past few weeks trying to break some of those habits, and you are doing so well! It’s beyond hard to be strict with you because 1) I love you so much and want to give you everything you want and 2) you are pretty darn stubborn, but I’m trying to be consistent so you aren’t confused about the rules. I always thought spoiling kids had a lot to do with money and buying them whatever they wanted, but the truth is that it’s easy to spoil kids. It’s way simpler to just give into your demands, and sometimes I just want to do the lazy thing, but I know in the long run, we both benefit by consistency, limits, routines, and safety. If you’re reading this as an adult, know that I was trying to do the best thing I knew how to do!

Your hair has gotten so curly! I joke that it’s as wild as you are – it has a mind of its own just like you!

You live being outside, but in kind of a funny way. We play in the sprinkler and you like it, but the second you get wet, you run over to the towel to dry off saying “dry dry dry!”. You also can spot a bug from a mile away and say “bugs all gone” until I remove it. Your favorite thing is bubbles, even though you always dump the bottle out after playing for a few minutes. I’m constantly showing you all the flowers growing in our yard too.

You live your little brother. It’s so sweet. You ask about him as soon as you wake up and Are always telling me where to put him or that he needs a paci. You like taking monthly photos with him and ask to climb into his Moses basket with him! You’ve also become quite the mamas girl, demanding that I put you to bed even when Chris is home sometimes. He’s a trooper, though, and is never offended.

You’ve got surprisingly good manners. Anytime someone sneezes you say “bless you, ____”. You also say “thank you,____” and “please”. Im starting to work on teaching you to say sorry. Crazy how you learn such big life skills at such a young age!

Rosemary, I’m so proud of you. I want you to always know that. It’s not the manners or the vocab, but rather your kindness and love that make you so special to us. You’re growing so fast, and as much as I wish time would slow down, I’m just trying to enjoy it all and show you that we love you. You’re still my baby girl and always will be!